Faux Plates!

December 1st, 2011

I went to Costco today for one thing, light bulbs. No sooner had I flashed my member card than I started getting texts from the office. We need toilet paper, paper towels, forks, and paper plates. As I perused the paper plate selection and saw the cost I thought to myself, these are expensive! But right next to the plates I saw a giant stack of coffee filters. They look like little bowls, but they were so cheap. Like hundreds of them for a couple of bucks. Hey, let’s use them instead of using a paper plate or paper towel. They are faux plates and you know I love all things faux! They’re lightweight, really inexpensive, and because they are bowl shaped they hold your food as well as all the crumbs, especially if you are on the go.
They more easily break down in a landfill, so there’s less guilt. And because they are meant to get wet and hot in their original job, (yes, you can use them to make your own coffee when the line at Starbucks is too long) they are great for holding warm things without getting soggy.
This is a great example of a product whose original use has been watered down, so to speak, with all the local coffee shops and single cup serving brew machines out there. But with a new job assignment as an alternate paper towel and paper plate, it can continue to live usefully in our kitchen cupboards.